I know my doctor isn’t perfect, as I’ve mentioned before; he’s just been convenient (he takes walk-ins). I’ve been planning to look for a new doctor, and now I pretty much have to.

I went to his clinic yesterday with this allergic reaction—swollen eyes, slightly elevated blood pressure, all the fun stuff. That’s when I discovered that he’s changed his practice to something that I expect he considers semi-retirement. He only takes walk-ins now, and apparently he’s made deals with employers in the area such that he does the physicals and drug-testing for employment screenings.

There are signs up all over the office saying that they don’t take people back to the exam rooms in the order they arrive because they triage folks for who needs to go back first—this is something I understand and can live with. Certainly if I came in bleeding all over the floor I’d want to be seen before the person with the sore throat, and if I was the one with the sore throat, I’d also agree that the guy bleeding all over the floor should go first. However, over the time I waited to see the doctor, it became apparent what the triage priority was. Anyone who came in for an employment-screening physical had first priority. Anyone with an actual medical condition had last priority.

I waited for, literally, four and a half hours while folks (most of whom arrived after I did) went in and out getting their physicals at $90 a head, paid for out-of-pocket, because of course the clinic will make more money off of that than it will off of my insurance-subsidized visit. (And I’m not the only one who came for a medical reason who had to wait that long.) After 6 pm I finally went out and told the receptionist that my blood sugar was getting low enough that I would have to leave soon one way or the other, and miraculously he suddenly had time for me.

Money should not come before health. I understand that there are cases where that isn’t practical, but in this case it seems a simple case of the doctor deciding that the only thing he cares about is maximizing the money he makes. I wish the clinic had at least had the guts to say, “we’re shifting our priorities, and you should really look for a new doctor,” rather than lying about it. The receptionist was giving an estimate of an hour and a half wait to folks coming in the door, and that’s about what the folks with physicals had to wait. The difference between that and four and a half hours is ridiculous.

I was going to try to say something interesting (I just typed allergy instead of interesting… Freud would be proud) today, but instead here I am, doped up on Benadryl, having slept for about 12 hours while doped up on Benadryl, and waiting to go to the doctor’s. Just the week for my allergist to be on vacation. The last time I had a reaction this bad I ended up visiting the emergency room on a Sunday. Nothing like taking your Benadryl before bedtime figuring it might at least keep things from getting worse, and hopefully make things better, only to have your eyes go from somewhat itchy, scratchy, and puffy before bed to downright swollen up, stinging, and burning in the morning.

I’m more than a little burned out on going through the endless rounds of trying to figure out what I might be reacting to, eliminating everything possible from exposure until the reaction goes down. The hard part is sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a topical reaction from what’s internal, and I’ve been known to develop sensitivities to things I’ve been exposed to for years without a problem. So—the new shampoo I switched to after reacting to the last one? Unlikely, since my scalp doesn’t itch. The strawberries or raspberries I’ve been eating a lot of the last few weeks? Likely, since I can get sensitized to fruit. The new sunscreen I used recently? Normally I’d say likely since I’ve reacted to sunscreen in the past, but a reaction wouldn’t wait several weeks to set in, an I’d expect a rash on my arms, too. So, very unlikely.

Tomato? Possible; I’ve had a lot of tomato with eggy breakfasts lately in addition to my morning V8. It seems odd that it would have taken this long to show, so I’ll put it behind strawberry and raspberry in possibility, but it’s likely enough that I might want to cut it from my diet just in case. Avocado? Maybe; I’ve had a lot of it with breakfasts as well lately, but again, it seems to have taken a while. I’ll put it just behind tomato for likelihood.

Then that leaves all the random “who knows” things. Maybe I’ve gotten sensitized to coffee. Perhaps its the cats’ new litter—we ended up with a scented (ick) version because the store didn’t have unscented, but that would be more likely to kick off asthma, not swelling. Oh, wait—there’s the lip balm I switched to a month or two ago; better stop using that for now.

Urgh. I hate Benadryl when I have to take it during the daytime. I can feel my brain getting all woozy.

So for the moment, unless the doc tells me it looks topical rather than internal, I’ll cut strawberry, raspberry, and perhaps tomato from my diet and see if it gets better. If so, I’ll try at least reintroducing tomato since it’s such a staple ingredient, so it would be nice to find out I’m not reacting to it. It’ll take quite likely another week before I know if it’s working, though, even if the doc gives me some heavy-duty meds.

Party line is, if there’s facial swelling, call 911. I’m weird in that facial swelling for me doesn’t mean I’m having an anaphylactic (potentially fatal) reaction; that’s just my normal reaction to almost anything. So it’s a waste for me to do that.

I think I’ve hit the rambling part of the Benadryl dose, so time for me to sign off.

I’m not often impressed by recipe blogs, but the other day I stumbled across Kalyn’s Kitchen–and the recipes actually made me hungry. Not just one or two of them, either. Here’s a surprising one: roasted radishes with soy sauce and toasted sesame seed. I never would have thought of that (either the roasting of radishes, or the pairing of them with soy sauce and sesame), but it looks absolutely fabulous! Kalyn includes suggestions for recipes to pair it with, as well as notes on which South Beach phases it works with and other blogs’ radish suggestions. Now that’s helpful.

Kinda-sorta in the health vein, last night we were bad and decided to try out a Chinese & Sushi restaurant nearby. The simple fact that it paired Chinese food and Sushi probably should have been warning enough, but oh well. The sashimi was the wrong color and texture, for gods’ sake—raw tuna shouldn’t be grayish. The dried shredded beef dish was way too dry, and the pork in the fried wontons tasted… wrong; anything that can cause me not to eat my fair share of fried wontons is notable indeed (I have a weakness for the things). It was a quiet day and yet the waiter forgot our tea and forgot to wrap our leftovers (not that we’re shedding any tears over that last part). Then I spent an hour and a half in the middle of the night running back and forth to the bathroom, and I don’t think these things are unrelated. We are never going back.

We generally skip really cheap or terrible looking restaurants, so we rarely have truly negative experiences with them. The worst we tend to get is, “you know, that restaurant just isn’t as good as it used to be; let’s stick to this other one instead.” This does, however, remind me of the Chinese restaurant in Boston where we’d gotten delivery and were pouring some dumpling sauce onto a plate only to have a dead roach float out of it. I wish I could say this was before we’d used the sauce at all.

There are supposedly some good Chinese restaurants in the middle of Annapolis where things tend to be more upscale and—god help us—trendy, so we’ll try those next and skip the stuff on the outskirts from now on.

When I was working on reviewing Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, one of the things I looked forward to was trying out some of the natural, non-super-processed sweeteners out there. After all, they often have slightly lower glycemic indexes (in the case of one or two, much lower!) and this is great news for us sugar addicts who are at risk of diabetes due to family history and bad eating habits (particularly those of us who can’t stand artificial sweeteners).

Technorati Tags: all-natural, cooking, health, Heidi Swanson, organic

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On those rare occasions when my husband isn’t home for dinner, I tend to lack the motivation to cook much of anything. Unfortunately this doesn’t tend to lead to a healthy meal. I had just enough motivation to try something new the other day, however, and it worked out particularly well, so I thought I’d share.

Technorati Tags: cooking, recipes

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When it comes to medical issues, I’m just plain weird. Take those antibiotic allergies. One allergist says they aren’t anaphylactic so they aren’t dangerous; she also says it shouldn’t take nearly a week to react; other doctors say if there’s any swelling at all it’s dangerous…

I finally have a possible answer. Apparently there are a few people who react not to the antibiotics, but to the virus. There’s a possibility that all of those times I was reacting to strep or whatever I had, not to antibiotics at all. Of course there’s no way to test allergies to those antibiotics, so there’s no way to know for sure.

The good news is, a reaction like the one I had this weekend is apparently almost certainly a contact dermatitis, NOT a food allergy. YAY! No avoiding corn, corn chips, corn syrup, cornstarch, etc. The hard part is figuring out what on earth I might have reacted to, since my skin is so sensitive that I avoid contact with just about everything when it comes to my face. It took a long time, but I did finally come up with one possibility that makes a lot of sense. We started going to the gym regularly again recently. When we’re there we sweat a lot, and I use one of their handy little towels that they provide to dry my face. Everywhere I reacted was a place I used the towel to clean my face. At home we use perfume- and dye-free detergent; I’m guessing they use whatever’s cheap.

I don’t know for sure that’s it, but it makes a lot of sense. My fingers are crossed, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to bring my own towel to the gym than it is to avoid corn products! *sounds of much cheering and scooping of ice cream*

Technorati Tags: allergies, health, eczema, sensitive skin

I should perhaps explain that my allergic reactions are a tad… odd.

Generally speaking, it is assumed by medical personnel that if you have any sort of facial swelling associated with an allergic reaction, then you’re most likely having an anaphylactic reaction–which means a danger of going into anaphylactic shock. That’s the sort of thing that folks allergic to peanuts or bee stings carry around epi-pen injections for.

However, anaphylactic reactions tend to be swift, fairly sudden things. They don’t happen slowly.

Naturally, I don’t follow these rules. I have reactions that develop over several days but involve swelling around the eyes. So the doctors are never sure whether to treat it as an anaphylactic reaction or not. In theory the slow nature of these reactions means that while they suck, they probably aren’t dangerous. In practice, it is possible for such a reaction to become dangerous, so doctors don’t like to take any chances. I guess that’s how I managed to get an appointment with the allergist the ER staff recommended on less than 24 hours’ notice. I think all I had to do was say “facial swelling” and I got one of the “reserved for serious problems” slots. So, tomorrow at 8:30 am I go in to fill out paperwork and then see my new allergist.

See, I have lots of experience with this type of reaction. I get it almost every time I take a new antibiotic. I just don’t usually get it with food.

Anyway, I’ve always loved the whole “high intelligence/low wisdom” saying from roleplaying. You know, folks who are so brilliant they could probably blow up the world (or at least a small portion of it), and don’t have the common sense not to. I’ve known a lot of people who fit this mold, particularly when I was going to and working at MIT. So naturally, I couldn’t help making a design for it. Embrace your deadliness!

High Intelligence, Low Wisdom
Shirts, mugs, more!

Technorati Tags: allergies, roleplaying

My husband is starting his new job. Since this means he won’t have 2+ hours of commuting every day now, we’re finally–no really this time–getting back to the South Beach Diet. We’re also finally getting back to the gym.

In a lot of ways his previous job was great, and any discussion of job content certainly isn’t my purview. But I’m so grateful that he should have more normal hours now and a MUCH shorter commute. It’s still the tech industry so he’s bound to have some long nights, particularly during crunch times, but it shouldn’t be as unpredictable and frequent. It’s really hard to do any cooking (or any other hobby), not to mention go to the gym, when you literally never know from day to day when you’re getting home.
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One of the tough parts about the South Beach diet (or almost any diet) is dealing with my husband’s work lunches. On the plus side, packing a lunch is much cheaper than eating at the local cafeteria or restaurants. However, it can get challenging to keep finding interesting and satisfying things to pack for him. At the moment he doesn’t really have access to a good microwave or refrigerator at work which further limits things.
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Fnally getting back on the South Beach diet, which means re-doing the two-week phase one period all over again. It’s worth it, though. I’m jonesing for sugar and chocolate, but I’ve already stopped having that cruddy feeling from having my blood sugar level bouncing up and down. Which means, yes, I’ve also gotten back to exercising again. As a result, sometime soon I’ll be putting up reviews of two yoga books. I’ve finished reading both of them; I just want to play with them in practice a bit more. (You never know when instructions that seem perfectly clear in the abstract will turn out to be terrible–or vice versa.)